Saturday, June 29, 2013

Janata
Party President Subramanian Swamy has asked China to accept the McMahon Line as
the border with India just as it did in the case of Myanmar to resolve the
vexed dispute. China should accept McMahon Line since it had accepted the same
line drawn at the same time in 1912 with Myanmar, Swamy said while speaking on
"China's relations with its neighbours" at the 2013 World Peace Forum
organised by China's Tsinghua University in association with Chinese Foreign
Ministry. "Such an acceptance will vastly improve India-China
relations," Swamy argued in a lengthy paper presented at the meeting
attended by strategic think-tanks from China and a number of other countries.

"On the contrary for more than two-and-a-half
thousand years, India and China, two large neighbours and economic superpowers
by the then prevailing standards, have had good and peaceful relations based on
mutual respect and cultural exchanges, and in fact never had a single military
clash till 1962," he said. "Chinese grievance is that the border
delineated by British imperialists and colonialists and called the Sir Henry
McMahon Line was unfair to China, taking advantage of China's then weak
position," he said.

"Of course this is a contestable view,"
Swamy said. "The key question is what prompts today's China in regard to
Japan and India, to make a grievance of a long past historical injustice and unequal
treaties enforced by imperialists on a weak China, versus what makes China of
today to ignore such injustices in case of others such as in the now settled
China-Myanmar border dispute accepting the same McMahon Line" he said.

Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy on a visit to Beijing has made a
pitch for India and China to work more closely on counterterrorism, even as he
voiced his support for the Chinese government’s efforts in tackling terrorism
in Xinjiang amid renewed criticism aimed at its policies after fresh violence
this week.

Dr. Swamy, who was here at the invitation of the World Peace Forum, a
diplomacy conference co-hosted by Beijing’s Tsinghua University and the Chinese
Foreign Ministry, said India and China should come together, especially in
Afghanistan, considering their common concerns on terror. His comments came
during a week in which the issue has been in the spotlight in China following
violence in Xinjiang that left at least 35 people killed. While official media
described the incident in Turpan as an act of terrorism, many minority Uighur
rights groups have blamed ethnic unrest for the violence. U.S. State Department
spokesperson Patrick Ventrell said last week the U.S. was “deeply concerned by
the ongoing reports of discrimination” in Xinjiang. Dr. Swamy on Saturday hit
out at the U.S., saying its comments were “damaging to the fight against
terrorism”, adding that China needed “to review its relations with Pakistan
since some of these Xinjiang terrorists are also of Pakistani origin.”

At the Tsinghua forum, he also made a pitch for India and China to move
beyond the boundary dispute. “India and China should be strategic partners, not
adversaries. The gain in Asian stability and international security would be
enormous,” he said. He also called on China to accept the McMahon Line - the
effective boundary in the eastern section of the border with India, which China
disputes – to end the row, as it had done with Myanmar. “Such an acceptance
will vastly improve India China relations,” he said.